The Science of Monsters

The aforementioned 2015 study in The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology further contends that this difference in female and male serial killers is most probably evolutionary:

The fact that such women primarily kill for resources and such men primarily kill for sex follows evolutionary prediction of sex-specific fitness maximization tactics based on differential reproductive potential. That is, due to differential reproductive potential (i.e., unlimited sperm production vs. very limited ova), in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, it would have been reproductively beneficial for men to seek multiple sexual opportunities and for women to seek a stable, committed partner with sufficient resources. Evidence suggests that men and women worldwide still seek mates according to this strategy. That fact that male serial killers typically commit their crimes for sex and female serial killers typically commit their crimes for money thus follows evolutionary theory.

It’s strange to think that the biological factors differentiating males from females are also what spurn our warped reasons to kill. Female serial murderers are oddly motivated by the same desires as other women, the evolutionary need to procure resources. It seems important to note that nearly all the serial murderers named in this chapter were attempting to function in a misogynistic society on the cusp of women’s suffrage. Though their acts are despicable and unforgivable, this could provide further insight into why women have killed.

Biological factors affect people’s reasons for committing murder.

Uniquely female, the succubus legend shares aspects with the vampire. Succubi like Jennifer in Jennifer’s Body employ their charm, just as attractive male vampires in movies like Interview with the Vampire (1994) capitalize on their sex appeal. And then, once the prey is properly spellbound, they are devoured for the monster’s own gain. It was what real female monsters hoped to gain that led us to find that evolution was a key player in the formation of motive. In proof, we only have to go back to that seemingly pleasant farm in La Porte, Indiana, where the bodies of men languished beneath the soil. During her reign of horror, Belle Gunness, coined “Lady Bluebeard” placed an ad in a local paper: “comely widow who owns a large farm in one of the finest districts in La Porte County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided, with view of joining fortunes.”⁶

OceanofPDF.com

SECTION FOUR

REANIMATED CORPSES

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TEN

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

Title: Night of the Living Dead

Year of Release: 1968

Director: George A. Romero

Writer: John Russo, George A. Romero

Starring: Judith O’Dea, Duane Jones

Budget: $114,000

Box Office: $30 million

Many agree that it was in the fall of 1968 when zombies were born. Night of the Living Dead premiered as a Saturday matinee at the Fulton Theatre in Pittsburgh on October 1st. This first showing, mostly attended by teenagers and their tagalong siblings, made cinematic history by ushering in the now ubiquitous depiction of ambling, brain-ravenous zombies. When actor Bill Hinzman playing the part of “Ghoul” stumbled into the graveyard to Tom’s (Keith Wayne) famous utterance, “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!” Hinzman unknowingly became the first modern-day zombie. His performance, replete with a stiff-legged walk, soulless eyes, and silent, twisted mouth, informed the portrayal of the undead for the succeeding five decades.

Reanimated corpses were not exactly new to film when Night of the Living Dead premiered in the late 1960s. The Plague of Zombies was released by Hammer Pictures in 1966, and the representation of a somnambulist or sleepwalker first appeared on celluloid in the German picture The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Caligari paralleled Haitian zombie lore with an individual under someone else’s control. Although not technically a zombie, they had a lumbering gait and lack of cognitive ability. But it is the visual performances and tropes, like humans being trapped by a horde of zombies, borne from Night of the Living Dead, that have spawned everything from the movie Night of the Comet (1984) to the television series The Walking Dead (2010–present).